CHANDIGARH: Even as the Budget session of the Punjab Vidhan Sabha was underway and the state government was highlighting its claims of maintaining an “upright” law and order situation while projecting policing initiatives such as Prahar 1 and Prahar 2, a village sarpanch was shot dead in broad daylight in Moga district on Friday.
Patto village Sarpanch Harvinder Singh Happy was gunned down on March 6 near Kotkapura Road in the Baghapurana area of Moga. According to initial reports, armed assailants arrived in a vehicle, surrounded the sarpanch and opened indiscriminate fire. He was rushed to a nearby hospital but succumbed to his injuries during treatment.
Reacting to the incident, senior Shiromani Akali Dal leader Bikram Singh Majithia alleged that the killing exposed the gap between the government’s claims and the ground reality. Citing sources, he said there had been intelligence inputs regarding threats to the sarpanch but preventive action was not taken.
Majithia said the development reminded many of the alleged intelligence failure in the killing of Punjabi singer Sidhu Moosewala in 2022 and alleged that the state machinery had failed to protect elected representatives.
Following the incident, Majithia said that on one hand the government was patting itself on the back over the law and order situation during the first day of the Budget session, while on the other hand a sarpanch had been murdered in broad daylight in Moga’s Patto village.
He alleged that the name of AAP MLA Amritpal Singh Sukhanand had surfaced in connection with the killing and demanded that the case be investigated by an independent agency.
The Akali leader further said that earlier also a sarpanch had been killed in Tarn Taran near the residences of the deputy commissioner and the senior superintendent of police.
Majithia claimed that central agencies had shared intelligence inputs regarding threats to the Moga sarpanch but the information was allegedly not taken seriously by the state police, drawing parallels with what he described as the intelligence failure in the killing of Sidhu Moosewala.
He said that the law and order situation in the border state had deteriorated and alleged that the police were restricting themselves to campaigns such as Prahar 1 and Prahar 2 while the state leadership remained focused on protecting its political position.
Majithia also referred to the case of 19 year old Ranjit Singh from Gurdaspur, which the family has alleged to be a fake encounter. He said the youth’s parents were still seeking justice and had not performed the last rites, continuing their protest. He demanded that the post mortem be conducted at PGI and that a case under Section 302 be registered against the police personnel responsible.
The Moga killing is the latest in a series of murders reported in the state in recent months.